Evidence that's Convincing - #1

Design in the universe points to an Intelligent Designer. William Paley's famous argument stated that if you find a watch on the ground, you immediately surmise it is not a fluke of nature. Watches, by virtue of their compleity and design, reqire a watchmaker. Nobody picks up a watch on the beach and says, "Praise the cosmos! Just look at the wonderful creation the forces of chance have tossed together". As Cliffe Knechtle says, "If you think the watch needs a designer, just glance from the watch to your hand. It is far more complex, has far more moving parts, displays much more intricate design, and therefore demands a designer that much more." Richard Dawkins, an outspoken athiest, raises the question of who designed the designer. He says, at best, design in the universe only points to a finite designer-not an infinite deity. Even if the existence of a finite designer was all we got from the evidence, this designer must be incredibly intelligent, amazingly powerful, and wonderfully wise to have invented, designed, and somehow produced all of that we see in the universe. Any being of that creative magnitude certainly ought to get our attention, capture our imagination, and would undoubtedly be worth listening to and learning from. If this amazing but finite, designer shows such incredible marks of design himself, then who designed and made him? That designer-behind-the -designer must be even more utterly mind-boggling. And if that designer is limited in any way, we can only imagine, (seriously, we can't even imagine), what the being who made him must be like. If we follow this argument from design, it will eventually draw us back to an infinite designer, who will probably be uncannily similar to the God describe in the Bible.

(From Choosing your Faith, by Mark Mittleberg)

The Law of Non-Contradiction

(Sorry I have been absent from posting for the last couple of weeks!)

As we examine our belief system, we need to thoughtfully and intentionally choose something worth following. Is that something that's inherited, or based in part on today's culture? Many belief systems contradict each other, but if we look at this logically, opposites cannot both be true. This "law of non-contradiction" is an inescapable reality-and you can't even argue about it without implicitly agreeing with me. In applying this principle of non-contradiction to matters of faith, the personal God of Judaism and Christianity is not compatible with the impersonal Brahman of Hinduism. Either God is an intelligent deity, who is distinct from the universe that he made, or he is an unconscious and impersonal pantheistic god, who is in and part of everything - or neither description is true - but he can't be both. Both concepts could be wrong, but they can't both be right because they are incompatible and contradictory. We should support the legal right of both of these traditions and other to exist and to spread their messages. That's tolerance. But don't confuse tolerance with truth. There can't be two contradictory-but-true realities in the sense of genuine, what is truth. Reality is reality-it's what is.

(From "Choosing your Faith in a world of Spiritual options" by Mark Mittelberg)

Moral Relativism

A current popular worldview is Moral Relativism. In the worldview, propositions about the nature of reality are not simply true or false. What we believe depends on the cultural, social, and linguistic contexts of the particular situation in question. In other words, truth is relative. What's true for one person may not be true for another. What's true in one location may not be true in another. And what's true today may not be true tomorrow. Relativism doesn't necessarily rule out the existence of God, but it doesn't establish God as an objective reality. Because truth is relative, belief in God and the supernatural is relative. The relativistic framework doesn't include the objective, transcendent God who created humanity in His image and who exists apart from His creation. In this worldview, God is who or what we want Him to be. Does relativism correspond with reality? That is an interesting question because in this framework, reality is subjective. There's no such thing as objective truth. The problem is that in saying that all truth is relative, the relativist is making an objective statement, (in philosophical terms, that means the argument about all truth being relative is self-refuting). The other problem is that when push comes to shove, two people with alternate views or perceptions of something that is real - let's say a car sitting in a parking lot-will ultimately agree that the car belongs to the person to whom it's registered rather than the person who wants to steal it.


(from the book Evidence for Faith by Bickel and Jantz)

Quote for the day

Just a short but insightful quote for today by Mother Teresa:

"When I pray, coincidences happen. When I don't they don't."

A Balanced Approach

To talk a little more about evidence for faith, what we're really after are the reasons for faith. Evidence is the data presented to prove the facts. It is anything that tends to prove or disprove something, it gives us grounds for belief. Reason and Truth are also related. Reason is the mental process we use in order to form a conclusion about something. The best definition of truth is that truth corresponds to reality. Again, truth conforms to the way things are. It is the objective of evidence and the object of reason. Evidence is presented in order to reveal the truth about something, and we use reason in order to point us to the truth. Evidence and reason are important, but they aren't the only way we can know truth. When it comes to reason and faith and the way they relate to truth, it isn't either/or. It's both/and. Both reason and faith help us get to the truth. Reason gets us there by enabling us to discover what corresponds with reality. But faith is also necessary because you can't personally prove everything that is real in the world. To illustrate- assuming you've never been to Nepal, you weren't alive during the Civil War, and you've never been bitten by a rattlesnake, how do you know that Mt. Everest is a real place, that Abraham Lincoln was a real person, and that a rattlesnake bite can be fatal? The reason you know these things is that you have exercised faith by believing what other people tell you about real places, people, and things. You can't personally prove these things, but you have good reason to believe that what other people have concluded about them is true.

(Taken from Evidence for Faith 101-Bickel and Jantz)

Worldview

(Ok, so I'm just going to officially post on Tuesdays from now on...)

One way people describe a belief system now days is to use the term "worldview". At it's most basic level, a worldview is a framework through which or by which we make sense of the world. It's like a lens through which you view and come to conclusions about reality, and it shapes the way you live your life. It would be a shame for anyone to adopt a certain worldview and live within that framework only to discover that it isn't pointing to the truth. Truth corresponds to reality, to the way things really are. Searching for and choosing the right world view should be at the top of everyone's to-do list. The trouble is, most people aren't proactive when it comes to investigating worldviews. Instead, they do one of two things. Either they inherit their worldview from their family through tradition, or they merely absorb the ideas and lifestyles of the culture around them, whether that involves tracking the media or following the crowd. Not saying you can't adopt a true and cohesive worldview this way, but why take the chance? Why not do your own research? The stakes are just too high not to take charge of your own choice. Even if you are confident that you are living with the best possible worldview, doing some investigation into the other options out there will help you understand why yours really is the best one.

(from Evidence for Faith 101 by Bickel and Jantz)

YOU exercise faith every day

When people hear the word, faith they usually think of religion. The thing is, everybody has faith, and they have it every day. If you didn't have faith, you would never leave your home. But you do.
-You have faith that your car is going to start and get you wherever you're going.
-You have faith in the other drivers on the road, that they won't slam into you.
-You have faith that your job or class will be there when you arrive.
-You have faith that at a certain designated time in the future, which you can't see, you will receive a paycheck for your efforts.
It's possible that any of those scenarios will turn out differently, but they're not likely, so you move through your day on faith for two basic reasons:
>You've done all this enough to know that your chances for success are pretty good, and
>You trust the manufacturer who built your car, the other drivers on the road, and that work will go as it has.
In other words, your faith in these objects rests in your knowledge of them and your experience with them, which add up to trust, confidence, and belief. Faith isn't irrational, we exercise it many times each day. Faith doesn't take away from belief. It adds to belief in that it adds trust and gives you the confidence to act on or commit to the things you believe. I also don't have to understand how electricity works in order to turn on a light switch. In fact, without faith,we would never act on our belief in a car, in people, or belief in God.

(thoughts by Bruce Bickel & Stan Jantz from the book Evidence for Faith)